Smartboard

Today we went to Mrs. Davison's class while they were at Related Arts. We used their smartboard (interactive white board) to go on BookFlix where we watched two stories (Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and Max's Chocolate Bunny). This is a site the school is looking at subscribing to, where children can find a book and have it read to them- the pictures are even animated! Now the kids really want a smartboard for our class!

Hanukkah, a family tradition

Make a Smilebox collage

Math Workplaces

The math workplaces are constantly changing and new activities are being added- check out the slideshow to see what the kids are currently doing!

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Our new listening center!

I ordered a new listening center for the classroom, and it is WONDERFUL! Four kids can listen at a time, they get a comfy seat and no wires to distract them!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Library and Police Station Field Trip

I bet you thought I didn't take pictures on these field trips!! Sorry for the delay...

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Fire Station Field Trip

a bit delayed...but here are some pictures from our field trip to the fire station! More on the library and police station coming soon!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Fundations

Every week we practice two new letters, and one of the ways we practice is on our Fundations white boards. They have the lines (sky line, plane line, grass line, and worm line) printed right on them! Today we practiced i's and r's.

Community Theme

This month as we study community, we are adding many things to our dramatic play area. One thing I added this week was doctor and dentist checklists. This has provided an opportunity for kids to pretend they are a doctor or dentist, communicate with other children, and learn about being healthy! The timing couldn't have been better for the kids- they are all pretending to give each other "the H1N1 shot".

Harvest Parade and Party!

On Friday we had our Harvest Parade with all the other kindergarten classes at ABS. The kids stapled things we harvest (apples, pumpkins, etc) to their crowns and rang their bells as we paraded around the school. Later in the afternoon we had special snacks, decorated foam pumpkins, and played a pumpkin and ghost game. When we were finished we went outside to play ring toss with pumpkins and gourd bowling- it wasn't as succesful as I'd hoped because the kids had so much energy and just wanted to run around on the playground :)

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Adding Books to Quiet Time

Every day after lunch we come in and turn the lights off, and the lamp on. I read a story to the class and then play some soft music while we have "quiet time". Today we added the books in our "browsing boxes" to quiet time. The children have some books they made (Hungry Caterpillar, A Hunting We Will Go, and Apple Tasting) along with three books from our classroom library they chose themselves earlier in the day. They were SO excited to look at books during this time, they couldn't stop talking about it all through lunch!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Counting Seeds

Today we read a book called Counting Pumpkin Seeds. We learned that the darker the pumpkin and the more lines, the more seeds there are inside! We made guesses about how many seeds, then opened up the pumpkin to count!

It took a LONG time :) but we finally counted by 10's and found out there were 603 seeds. Then we roasted and ate them!

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Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

We had a great time yesterday at the Pumpkin Patch!!!

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Fundations

As we learn new letters each week, we add them to the pile of letters we know and practice. At the beginning of Fundations each day, we do what is called "Drill Sounds". I hold baby echo (a small stuffed owl puppet) and say a letter/keyword/sound as I hold up the card, and the kids repeat, or echo it. Today the kids took part in doing drill sounds and each child had a turn to be the leader. They loved it!

Morning Meeting

We have been practicing our greetings at Morning Meeting and this week I added name cards. There is a card for each child in the class, with their picture and name. We take turns turning over a card and walking over to greet that person. We have been practicing eye contact, volume, facial expression, and shaking with opposite hands :)

Apple Field Trip

Here is a slideshow of the Apple Orchard Field Trip. My camera battery died when we got there, so the photos are taken from the flip video camera that I had...I apologize that some of them are pretty blurry! At least you can get an idea of the things we did. The kids had a blast and our guide, Opa Steve, was fabulous!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

A Hunting We Will Go

In the beginning of the year, we make many books that the children can become so familiar with they can read them from memory and start to match words with print. The first one we made was the Very Hungry Caterpillar and the latest is A Hunting We Will Go. We will also be reading familiar stories again and again until the children know them really well (then we have several copies the children can keep in their browsing boxes).

Math Workplaces

In math we are learning how to do stations that we call Math Workplaces. Each workplace has a bin with manipulatives (soon to be some math games!)and the children get to choose which one they want to go to. In the bins right now are teddy bears, polydrons, pattern blocks, bugs, and geoboards. These workplaces continue all year which is a nice consistent routine for the kids. The activities change one at a time to introduce new topics and ideas.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Beginning of School

It has been so wonderful to return to the classroom! The kids are full of energy, excited about school, and enthusiastic to learn. We start each day with a Morning Meeting where we greet each other, read the message, and do an activity. Each morning we also have a "Sound Circle" time where we learn about words. This week we have talked about how people learn to talk (starting with babies crying, babbling, etc), then we looked at short words vs. long words, and today we counted the words in sentences and represented each word with a person!
Another thing we did this week was decide on rules for our classroom which we could include all of them in three general rules (be safe, be kind, and take care of materials. We also drew pictures of our hopes and dreams for what we would like to learn in kindergarten.

We are having a blast, and I will continue to update you on our blog about things we're doing. Next time I will try to include pictures or a video!

Welcome!

Welcome New Families!
If you are reading this then you have successfully found our class blog! I look forward to keeping you updated about what's happening in the classroom...stay tuned!

Measuring Frog Jumps

This week we have a new math workplace. The students are pretending to be frogs, and measuring how far they can jump. First they record an estimate of how far they think they can jump, then they do the jump and record it. The first day we practiced our frog jumps outside and then came in and everyone got one jump (even me!). Now the students are choosing it at an independent station during math.

Nonfiction Research Project

We have been studying nonfiction writing this month. Children have been working on "All About" books, writing about things they know a lot about. Now they are working on a Nonfiction Report about an animal of their choice. The first thing the children did as "researchers" was look at nonfiction books about the animal of their choice- they were very excited to learn about the animals and share their knowledge with friends!

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Signatures to Space!

Mrs. Wilson's 3rd/4th grade class has been involved in a project they shared with our class. They had a large poster that anyone in the school could sign, and then the signatures would be brought on a US Space Shuttle mission. I believe it will take place this come fall when we are back in school.

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Four Winds

Today we had Four Winds and we learned about different types of clouds and wind. The kids got to try out their own weather vanes and watch wind move bubbles!

Enjoy the video (I learned how to add music!!)

Time FLIES when you're having fun!

Wow, I know I keep saying this, but the year is going by so fast! I apologize for not posting more often...and I have three groups of pictures to share with you! The first is from Four Winds in March, the second is our Maple Sugaring field trip, and the last is from today's writer's workshop. We made "space guys" (astronauts on popsicle sticks) to keep in our writing folders to help us make spaces between our words!

Four Winds (March)
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Maple Sugaring Field Trip
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"Space Guys"
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Reading Buddies

This week we started reading buddies with Ms. Deforge's 1st and 2nd grade class in Esprit! We will go every week on Tuesday at 2:00. It was fun to do something new and different as we're all waiting for winter to be over and spring to come!

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Four Winds

During our January Four Winds, children learned about air at three different stations...

100th Day of School

Today was the 100th day of school! This kids made crowns with 100 starts on them, and we counted to 100 by 10's several times!

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Every day from 10:45-11:30 we participate in Literacy Stations around the room, called our Work Board. The children rotate through four activities each day with a group of 2-3 children. Now that they are more independent, I meet with reading groups during this time as well!
This video shows some of the stations they go to including: spelling words with wikki sticks, reading big books, and sorting pictures to match their beginning sounds in the pocket chart. Some other activities include reading around the room, sorting rhyming words, playing sight word memory, and card-making.

Inauguration Day

Yesterday we watched the swearing-in of Barack Obama to be the President of the United States. The kids were very excited to see such an event!

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Kid Count

This month the Bridges Math Program "jazzed up" the kid count we usually do. The idea is to count the number of kids in the class, then talk about 1 less, 1 more, etc. This is our dynamic class making it their own!

Keyboarding

Greetings and Happy New Year!
We have had a great couple days adjusting back to the routine of school! The children were so excited to see each other and share the things they did over break.

Today we went to the Technology Lab. We have been a few times this year, learning how to log in and out, and children have been using a math program in the classroom. We will now start going about once per week. The program we learned today is called Type to Learn Junior. It is a keyboarding program that will teach the students to use both hands to type, and where to find the letters of the alphabet. It also helps children practice their letter identification skills, and matching uppercase to lowercase letters! It is fun for the kids as there are many practice activities that feel like games to them.